In this essay I seek a deeper understanding of the EU's vision of development. Based on the EU aid and agricultural policies, I want to examine how it is possible that the EU, which is the major trading partner for many developing countries and also stresses free trade and economic integration as the key to global development, on the other hand allows different types of financial subsidies in order to protect the EU agricultural market from international competition. How can these contradictions be incorporated in the EU's approach to global development? With the help of an ideal type analysis, where neo-liberalism, mercantilism and postcolonialism are used as a theoretical framework, the underlying ideas of the EU's development and agricultural policies are going to be characterized. By characterizing which theoretical ideal that is the basis for the political objectives of the EU policies, these can then be associated with a certain type of idea. The result of the analysis shows that all three theoretical ideal types can be detected in the two policies, but the incidence varies in degree and extent. In my concluding discussion, we will see if, and how, we can interpret the EU's vision of development based on the result of the analysis.